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When I was little, one of my absolute favorite meals was my mom’s quiche. Delicate, yet simultaneously and sinfully rich, it seemed like a cloud made of cheese and egg and flecked with sought-after pieces of yummy bacon. I rejoiced when I heard, after school, that it was on the menu. The whole time I was growing up, I’d hear people asking her for the recipe. I took it to a potluck once and a guy told me it was one of the best quiches he’d ever tasted. It was like this magical and complicated dish that my mother produced with her highest order homemaking skills.

William had an appointment at 8:00am, and I had to get both of the boys up, dressed, fed, and out the door by 7:40am. Once we arrived at the appointment, I had to stand outside on the nearby playground in near-freezing temperatures with Cormac for the half hour while we were waiting for William.

Crack-of-dawn playground antics

Afterwards, despite my best efforts, there was a potty “incident” that forced me to drag both reluctant children back to the car and then drive all the way home to freshen up prior to getting back into the car so we could traipse to William’s new preschool and take care of some paperwork. As you can imagine, this was like trying to conduct a business transaction while holding two excitable monkeys by the ears.

I have to admit that I’m a little sheepish about writing this post, because it definitely falls into that “dirty little secrets” category of my life in the kitchen. Sometimes, however, desperation drives us to attempt the recreation of a favorite takeout or restaurant dish that we simply can’t get – either because we’ve moved away or the restaurant isn’t open or you’re broke. It is just this type of desperation that brought me here, today.

You see, back when I lived in New York, one of my favorite foods was Cantonese Noodle Soup. Something I’ve noticed about Chinese places is that all the restaurants in a given geographical area seem to do the same things well and other things poorly. For example, after leaving New York, I couldn’t find a good steamed veggie dumpling to save my life. In the suburbs of Northern Virginia…ugh…don’t even talk to me about the thick, doughy crab rangoon. But the dish I’ve most sorely missed since leaving New York is Cantonese Noodle Soup.